Inga and I saw another great show at Yoshi's last Friday night.
The duo of Oakland residents pianist Omar Sosa and percussionist John Santos opened. Santos is a Bay Area treasure: historian of Latin music, bandleader (the Machete Ensemble), radio commentator. Sosa is a fairly recent arrival who's been playing and recording a lot. They played a very loosely structured set of long, largely improvised pieces, mostly keeping to music with a light, pretty, spiritual texture that was still rhythmically powerful. Sosa, the only musician I've ever seen who makes the sign of the cross when introduced, plays a lot of things that remind me of Keith Jarrett - that major chord Protestant hymnal sound in the left hand. Other times his harmonic colors remind me of Herbie Hancock. He mixes jazz and Cuban styles as the mood takes him. He's also unusual in his inclination to use wire brushes on various parts of the piano! On the last tune Santos was remarkably fluent on maracas, as expressive as any snare drummer.
Tenor saxist David Sanchez followed this with a set I enjoyed more than almost any I've seen in the last couple of years, with Edsel Gomez, piano, John Benitez, double bass, Adam Cruz, drums, and Pernell Satornino (sp?), percussion. Sanchez is an inventive improvisor with a strong, bright sound, who works clear, attractive ideas into solos that are long yet easy to focus your listening on. (By the way, he's on Mike Longo's second most recent album.) Most of this quintet has been playing together as a group for some time now, and it shows - they are telepathic. I found this set especially satisfying because most of the pieces they played had some unusual formal element, something beyond head solo solo solo head; a radical tempo shift, different mixes of instruments, etc. I had been hoping Benitez would be in the band, since I've been getting into his work on the Steve Berrios album "First World."
The quintet started with Jobim/Moraes's "O Morro Nao Tem Vez," which they did with a faster, tougher samba beat than Getz/Bonfa's bossa nova version. Gomez had a solo that started out with lovely singing lines in the right hand and gradually mutated into crazed octaves a la Eddie Palmieri. The tune turned into a demonstration of Brazilian Carnaval parade music by Satornino on pandeiro (tambourine struck with a drumstick) and whistle, Cruz on drums, and Sanchez on agogo (cowbells), that got unbearably exciting. I think the next piece was titled "Street Scenes." It was a slow, soul-ish thing that you could imagine one of Cannonball's groups digging into. Gomez's piano solo was more gospel- ish and two-handed than in the first number. The tune cooked harder and harder as it went along, then after a bass solo it suddenly went all ECM. Bass, drums, and percussion were still going at the same steady tempo, but the drummer was hitting different drums than before, and the bassist was playing more between the beats. On "Tu y Mi Cancion," a pretty bolero, Sanchez changed his sax sound, using a breathier lighter tone. They closed with "Los Cronopios," which included a hot duet by Sanchez and Cruz and an intense section with all five men on percussion. The audience was really into it.
I've heard Sanchez's groups on the radio and always liked it, but if you can, you should hear this group live - it's extra special.